We are five days away from the 2013 Blogathon over at GraphiContent where I and 15 other writers will discuss a wide range of topics over the course of 24 straight hours with new posts every 30 minutes. Like the 2011 Blogathon, my charity of choice this time is the Hero Initiative. Last year, we raised over $500 dollars for the Hero Initiative and, so far, we’ve gotten $144 in sponsorship for this year’s Blogathon. If you would like to donate, there are several ways:

I have added the Peter David link, because he and his family could use the support — and because it is a perfect example of what the Hero Initiative does. Most of us are aware that the organisation exists and have an idea of what it’s intended to do, but we don’t necessarily get a glimpse of what the Hero Initiative actually does. Well, this is one of those things. Peter David suffered a stroke over the holidays and the Hero Initiative is helping to provide funds to him and his family as he recovers. It’s a very direct and easy to see demonstration of what your money will be doing if you choose to donate and sponsor us in the Blogathon.

If you do choose to do so, drop me an e-mail at chevett13[AT]yahoo[DOT]ca so I can record you contribution.

This year’s Blogathon is going to be a bit different than my four previous Blogathons. Instead of simply writing by myself all day, I have enlisted 15 talented writers to join me. We have selected topics and they will each provide a post on their specific topic with me writing two bookend posts — the second one being a response of some kind to what they wrote (and to keep things lively and fresh, I won’t be reading any of the other posts until I post them). The stellar line-up is:

In addition to that part of the Blogathon, I will also be writing 16 posts here on Comics Should be Good during the same half-hour period when the other writers' posts go up here. I will be counting down my top 10 comics of 2012, my top five comics from before 2012 that I read in 2012, and some other 'best of 2012' post that I haven't quite figured out yet.

The whole thing begins on Saturday January 26 at 9am EST. I hope you will drop by and, hopefully, donate some money to a worthy cause, the Hero Initiative.

It’s taken some time to plan, but I am doing a fifth and final Blogathon on January 26, beginning at 9 am EST. For 24 hours, I will post something on my blog GraphiContent every half hour for charity. Once again, my charity of choice is the Hero Initiative. Except, there is one small change this time: I won’t be alone. Instead of my usual 49 posts, this year, I will be joined by 15 other writers to discuss topics of our choosing. The line-up of talented, caring writers joining me to help raise money for a great cause:

Most of those names you probably recognise and the ones that don’t, you should. It’s a pleasure to have them all aboard for this insane scheme with me. Basically, how it will work is, each writer and I will decide on a topic. They will write their posts ahead of time. During the Blogathon, I will kick off discussion of the topic, follow that up with their post, and then do another post in response to what they wrote (I won’t read their posts until they are posted by me, either). Additionally, for all of the Splash Page fans out there, Tim Callahan has agreed to do two posts, so the Blogathon will begin and end with the two of us discussing Jack Kirby’s ’70s work and the Joe Casey remix/rewrite Youngblood hardcover.

Now, you may think that by bringing in 15 writers to do 16 posts, that means I’ll be taking it a bit easier this time. You would be wrong. For those half-hour periods, I will be doing a series of posts here at Comics Should be Good on the best of 2012. It’s not just a bigger Blogathon in contributors, but in blogs.

That brings us to the most important thing in all of this: the Hero Initiative. It’s a charity that provides financial assistance to comic professionals that require it. It’s an organisation that I have a large amount of respect for and one that, sadly, the comics industry desperately needs. You can sponsor my co-bloggers and myself in a number of ways:

Last year, we raised over $500 for this great cause and it would be amazing if we could not only match that, but somehow surpass it. If you do wish to sponsor us in the Blogathon, please make sure to shoot me an e-mail at chevett13[at]yahoo[dot]ca and let me know what you contributed. I know, charity is best when done privately and it feels weird to ‘brag’ about it, but it’s the only way to keep track of how much money was raised.

Stop by GraphiContent and here on Saturday January 26, beginning at 9 am EST to read some smart writing on comics every half an hour. It’s all for a great cause and promises to be a lot of fun.

Yep, so it’s come to this…EIGHT years of Comics Should Be Good! Eight years ago today this little ol’ blog was started up by Alex, Joe, two Pauls, Tadhg and myself (with a super cool name picked out by Joe). Thanks guys, for starting this place up with me! We’ve come a long way from being a blog just devoted to Joe Rice’s drunken reviews of the films of Roddy Piper!

Hey folks, just figured I’d give another update on the Line it is Drawn try-out.

As I mentioned last time, we added two new artists that you’ll meet hopefully tomorrow.

Also, I have contacted the ten artists with the next highest amount of votes and they have all agreed to continue to try out during the last three weeks of January. After three weeks of drawing, we’ll all vote again and the Line it is Drawn will have a new addition to the group!

So if you were not e-mailed by me, then that does, in fact, mean that you did not make it this time around. As you all could see, we had quite literally a TON of good artists (I think there were enough good artists that if you weighed them all together they’d weigh a ton – agreed?) trying out. Choosing between them was insane – you were all so good. And since everyone saw the entries, you know that I’m not just blowing smoke here – they all really were THAT good.

After this week’s edition of the Line it is Drawn, I’ll do a post introducing you to the ten artists you’ll be seeing more from in January.

After all the votes were cast by you folks and our judges (including awesome comic book pros Fred Van Lente and Eric Trautmann, who both have had their suggestions used in past Line it is Drawn installments), we have two new regular artists. You’ll be meeting them next week when they make their debut in the column.

However, I’ll be sending out e-mails Monday to the ten artists who received the next most votes. We’d like to see some more of your artwork in January (the Line it is Drawn feature as a whole will take a break until after the New Year after this coming week’s installment). Then after two more weeks of art, we’ll pick our next Line it is Drawn artist!

You all made it extremely difficult for our judges to decide. SOOOO much amazing artwork. I am so honored to be able to share your work with everybody.

Yep, so it’s come to this…SEVEN years of Comics Should Be Good! Seven years ago today this little ol’ blog was started up by Alex, Joe, two Pauls, Tadhg and myself (with a super cool name picked out by Joe). Thanks guys, for starting this place up with me! We’ve come a long way from being a blog just devoted to Joe Rice’s reviews of local brothels!

Yes, it is that most glorious time of the year once again – Fred Van Lente Day approaches!!

Tuesday, December 6th will be Van Lente-riffic, with a lot of breaking Van Lente news, plus some great preview pages for you to marvel at!

Plus, Fred and I will be doing an online panel about comic book history. Fred had an interesting idea to do a sort of Comic Book Comics/Comic Book Legends Revealed team-up. The way it will work is that Fred and I will, in effect, interview each other in a chat room about comic book history. You can all attend if you’d like and ask questions, but it won’t be a traditional chat in the sense that it will mostly be Fred and me interacting. Still, if you’re interested in comic book history, it should be a fun read. We’ll be doing it at 2:30PM Eastern time on Fred Van Lente Day. I’ll put up a link to the chat room at that time (and this year, it will be in a chat room without a limit to how many people could chat at once).

I’m pleased to announce that we’re going to be hosting a second comic book podcast here at Comics Should Be Good! On top of the always awesome 3 Chicks Reading Comics Podcast, we’ll also be having Alistair Kennedy and Paul O’Brien’s House to Astonish podcast, which has just recently celebrated its third year of great comic book talk!

First, the sad – all three of our original The Line it is Drawn artists – Caanan Grall, Daniel Irizarri and George Zapata – are going to be moving on. George, as you may or may not know, is hard at work on the independent comic book series, The 36 (you can check out preview pages of The 36 here). Daniel is working on a comic book project of his own and Caanan (besides continuing his Eisner-nominated Max Overacts) is working on some new projects, as well.

So we wish them all very well. We’ll certainly miss them here a lot!

Now on to the exciting news – with us soon to be down three artists, we need to add three artists to the feature! So here’s what we are going to do. If you are interested in becoming one of the new Line it is Drawn artists, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. For the next two weeks, everyone who wants to try out for a spot will join our current seven artists (Caanan, Daniel and George will be sticking around for the next three weeks) for a two week trial period. All of the trial artists will pick out a suggestion from our Twitter suggesters and they will do a drawing on the same schedule as our regular artists. After the two weeks are over, you readers will vote for who you like best. Your votes will be mixed with votes by myself and some other folks whose opinion that I trust. The top two artists will get the chance to join as new regular artists for the Line it is Drawn and the third will be the regular alternate artist (like Sean McFarland is right now).

To refresh what we’re asking for here – we want artists who are willing to do a drawing every week in about 4-5 days time. I’m certainly fine with people missing a week or two (that’s the whole point of having an alternate), but if you don’t think you can meet that schedule, please don’t try out. Chaz Folgar has hit every deadline since he joined 57 weeks ago. Nick Perks has hit every deadline since he joined 52 weeks ago. Mic? has missed 2 out of a possible 48 weeks. Sean has barely missed any, either. So it is certainly a doable achievement, but please be realistic with your abilities to hit a deadline before you offer yourself up as a possible addition to the Line it is Drawn.

Otherwise, I welcome your e-mails! This should be a lot of fun to see a bunch of new faces! Remember, if you think you can hit the deadlines and you want to do this, send me an e-mail at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. There is no vetting process, it is an open invitation. I’ll e-mail you your list of suggestions on Friday.

Megan Parker will be doing the occasional piece about comics here. If you don’t know Megan, she is on Twitter as TheElfGirl. She also wrote a bunch of articles for Pink Kryptonite. Her first piece will be up in thirty minutes. I just figured I’d give her a quick introductory post so you’re not wondering “Who is Megan Parker?” when her post goes up.

I just got an e-mail from Chip Mosher of Boom! Studios about the death of Minck Oosterveer earlier this week. Oosterveer was a Dutch artist who only recently started working in the States, most notably on the Boom! series The Unknown, which was written by Mark Waid. The Unknown was a cool comic about a genius private investigator, and it looked superb thanks to Oosterveer’s pencils. It’s too bad more Americans didn’t get a chance to see his work, which was sexy without being exploitative and gritty without obscuring his clean lines. Mosher let us (the “press”) know that in honor of Oosterveer, they’re offering all eight issues of the The Unknown and its sequel, The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh mini-series for free through all their digital partners – ComiXology, ComicsPl.us, Graphicly, and MyDigitalComics. Or you could, you know, buy the trades. They’re quite good.

Matt Gagnon, the EIC of Boom!, has a nice appreciation of Oosterveer here. And underneath the cut you can check out the first few pages of The Unknown #1.Continue Reading »